Sales of existing homes fell in May, as severe weather and high gas prices weighed on the shaky housing market.

Home sales fell 3.8% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.81 million, down from a revised rate of 5 million in April, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday.

Sales were more than 15% lower than in May 2010.

Economists had expected a May sales rate of 4.79 million existing homes, according to consensus estimates from Briefing.com.

"Spiking gasoline prices along with widespread severe weather hurt house shopping in April, leading to soft figures for actual closings in May," said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun.

Gas prices surged earlier this year, pinching household budgets and putting a damper on consumer spending. In addition, sales were hurt by tornados and flooding in May that devastated parts of the South and Midwest.

Sales fell more than 6% in the South and were down over 5% in the Midwest. By contrast, sales fell 2.5% in the Northeast and were flat in the West.

Sure, when the price of gas goes lower, everyone will start buying houses. The fact that so many are unemployed, underemployed or have no job security has nothing to do with the crashing housing market. A 5 letter word comes to mine: IDIOTS!

17
posted on 06/21/2011 9:15:20 AM PDT
by LuvFreeRepublic
(Support our military or leave. I will help you pack BO!)

Getting people to part with their heard-earned dollars to buy trees and shrubs and perennial plants this season has been like pulling TEETH! I have had exactly TWO large landscaper contracts this season. Two. Pathetic!

Thanks again, 0bama, Pelosi, et al. You know - the ‘Rats that have been in charge of the economy since 2006? Grrr! Hurry 2013! I’m hangin’ by a thread, here!

It sounds ridiculous, but there’s something to it. We’re trying to sell, before our fourth baby gets here totally outgrown our house....ANYWAY, things were dead this spring, and since the sun has come out, it’s been non stop showings for us, six out of the last seven days.

Our agent says things picked up countrywide, and his theory was the weather.

“I do not know how much more of this Obama
“recovery” the construction industry can afford!”

Look into my eyes and repeat after me: “Obama is brilliant, Obama is brilliant, Obama is brilliant, Everything is George Bush’s fault, Everything is George Bush’s fault, Everything is George Bush’s fault.....

Repeat until the 2012 elections and call us on
the morning following the election.

“The fact that so many are unemployed, underemployed or have no job security has nothing to do with the crashing housing market.”

Bingo. The fact that housing prices have been artifically manipulated into their sky high dollar amounts, that are realistically unaffordable, is an even bigger issue. This bubble has been nearly two decades in the making. With the $1 Billion dollar “Homeowner Bailout” (EHLP), the Obama administration is going to ensure that only those it wants to own a home can afford one.

Housing prices will drop another 50% unless snapped up by foreigners. The (average) housing prices today are unsustainable to the (average) U.S. family. Adjusted for inflation, for well over an hundred years, the average price of a single family dwelling was $100K (Except for about 2 years, following the depression, where manufacturing of housing was optimized, then the inflation adjusted price was about 65-70K).

When people get it through their heads that houses depreciate over time unless their money is losing it’s value faster, and realize that an oversupply of aging structures should, has, and will continue to fall, it will stop coming as a surprise.

The U.S. has NEVER had a populace that could afford the housing prices of the last few years, or even today. The unprecedented and extreme rise in housing over the last 2 decades was all based on cheap credit, governmental forced loans, and in many cases municipal manipulation (higher appraisal for tax assessment).

No one should be surprised that as 85% )IIRC) of new graduates are returning home, extended families are moving in together, and the overall job and economic outlook is plummeting, that the price of houses will fall for a decade or more (if there’s no sudden crash in the meantime).

Obama isn’t the cause of the housing correction, but he sure is going to do all in his power to make it worse, and use it to his advantage to decide who ultimately can and cannot own a home. He’s a politician, that’s what they do.

Obama isn’t the cause of the housing bubble correction, but he will make it worse to everyone involved (except to the elitists that he favors, that is). The democrats, however, are the driving force behind the bubble in the first place, and this rests squarely on their shoulders, as well as many republican facilitators (although some, like with the Fannie/Freddie whistleblowing, have been trying to correct the problem—or at least call attention to it). This (the correction) has been decades in the making, it was well into motion when Bush was leaving office.

I know—but in my case—I bought last spring—every single day I went out to look at houses it was pouring down rain; it couldn’t be helped; I went out when I was available and when my Realtor was available, and also every single Sat and Sun regardless of weather. I looked at 80+ houses in a 30 mile wide area.

I had a deadline in mind, though—school starting in the fall, and getting my kids registered ASAP so they wouldn’t be sent to a non-neighborhood “overflow” school in the district. So I looked all that rainy spring and closed escrow at the very beginning of summer. I was a serious buyer though.

At least I could see how the downspouts were working.

I guess a lot of buyers are more casual, and weather might make a big difference in when they feel like looking at houses. Funny to me though.

And, surprise, surprise, it keeps getting better! 0bama’s going to go down in history and it isn’t going to be positive. He and his Demonrat party have brought down the United States. A case study just like the Roman Empire.

My son’s mother-in-law is a life time lefty. She’s now VP in a small town bank. We were having dinner with her last week and she said, with due gravity and seriousness, that the economy was finally turning around. You know what her specialty is? Mortgages! Yep, that’s right. These people have lost, if they ever had it, the ability to comprehend reality. They are hard wired into the endlessly repeated demrat talking points. To the extent that what is happening right in front of them does not even register in their brain.

Here in NJ, the housing prices aren’t the problem; the property taxes are. Potential buyers don’t like the idea of paying $15K in property taxes alone if they bought the house for cash tomorrow. Those of us who bought here have to suck it up; those who didn’t, won’t. As jobs flee to lower-tax environments, those who own homes are stuck with them, while those who are able follow the jobs.

FWIW, the same dynamic will explain why so few people in their early twenties now will ever have children later; they know the rug can be pulled out from under their feet at any time (as is happening everywhere now), and they don’t intend to be in the same position as us older folks.

“When people get it through their heads that houses depreciate over time unless their money is losing its value faster,”
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Got into a big argument with a realtor lady once, she was ranting about how stupid it was to buy a mobile home because they don’t appreciate like a site built house. I told her there was no such thing as appreciation in a site built house, it depreciates too although maybe a little more slowly than a mobile home. She thought I was nuts until I laid out my case and then she agreed with me.

46
posted on 06/21/2011 5:46:13 PM PDT
by RipSawyer
(Trying to reason with a liberal is like teaching algebra to a tomcat.)

I think there is a word for this but I can’t recall it. Sometimes people have so much invested in a wrong belief that they simply cannot bear to even consider the possibility that they might be wrong. Liberalism really is a mental disease, it requires a person to completely deny reality. Their worldview has become a religion, not to be questioned. They will still be ranting about global warming, for instance, when the whole world is frozen...and it will be Bush’s fault.

47
posted on 06/21/2011 5:54:22 PM PDT
by RipSawyer
(Trying to reason with a liberal is like teaching algebra to a tomcat.)

You bring up some very pertinent and valid points. A big, big problem in the U.S. right now is that people have forgotten what it means to own property. Years ago, it was one’s own castle, or spot on earth. That was the value, not some “spin the wheel of house flipping and see if we get rich” scam that it is of late. As such, few care about their communities enough to build them up, resulting in a transient society.

I feel for those who are upside down, because they may not have known what was coming, although all the signs were there. My father’s late father’s rule (he’d be nearly 100 now and the rule was once a common adage) of thumb, was that anything over double one’s gross salary, is more than someone can afford a mortgage on. For over 100 years, that has held true (the most comprehensive study was a 116 year period from 1890 to 2006). Only in very recent years have existing homes been so high in price (and rising until the late 2000’s) that they were unaffordable in price to the common man, but manipulated through currency manipulation and easy credit.

I hope it was unintended, but whether or not, a big consequence to that bubble is the bankrupting of those in the middle class who were unfortunate enough to not see the signs. My parents, thankfully did in about 2003 and got out of the city while the getting was good. I feel bad for the innocent caught up in the fray, but pray they’ll teach their children that the biblical proverb is still true that truly the borrower is servant to the lender.

And as an end note, property taxes have got to go before we become even more of a fuedal system than we already are becoming.

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